The Blank Spot Revisited
Dan Pelletier
I'm gonna wander a bit. I'm gonna meander way off into
strange territories - but stick with me.
Sometimes as we're reading, we get stuck. We look at
a bunch of cards, or a card and go, "huh?" We look
up at the client and panic sets in, "Shoot, they're
paying me $40 for 30 minutes and have no idea what..." Sometimes
we wonder if we are fraudulent, "Why am I doing this?
When will I learn?" The 'committee' in our head gets loud.
If it's an Internet reading we reach for the book, maybe
that dog-eared one by John what's his name...
The book's no help, the 'meaning' doesn't fit.
Extreme panic sets in.
I once wrote about "The Blank Spot," and discussed
extra-ocular vision mode (staring off into space), but
some folks can't grok that, and well, perhaps it did fall
short.
Some of us are taught to deal the cards face up; it allows
us to get a look at the big picture of the sitter's life.
It also allows us to create a panic mode situation because
there's that group of cards over there making no sense,
and the sitter's staring at Death and the Devil, we're
staring at these other two cards...everybody panics!
I laid out the cards face-up for years (still do sometimes).
However I find that it allows too many opportunities to
become overwhelmed. Both you and the sitter can be distracted
by stuff over there - when the 'here and now' is waiting....
When reading with the cards facedown, I find that I have
more control over the relationship of the reading. Clients
tend not to reach over to grab the Hanged Man (or what
ever card...) and turn him over, or pick whatever it is
up, "What's this three Sword sticking in this heart
mean?"
I find that reading facedown, and turning cards up as
I come to them allows the reading to unfold in a much more
logical, feeling, emotionally stable manner. The reading
takes on a flow - rather than
Static
Little
Moments
Of
Cards
It takes on a dynamic stream...like life itself.
But still, sometimes we hit the wall.
Bang.
Sometimes it's not the card per se, but a cessation of
that flow....
Something - stops us.
I used to teach folks how to trade the stock market.
My students ranged from Housewives to Hedge Fund traders,
retired Doctors to high-powered Brokers.
I'd tell the folks on the first day of class, "Most
books tell us to impose mechanical processes to the market
and to be devoid of emotion. Most strategies fail because
they eliminate the human (emotional) element. The markets
are silent, and brutal, but not devoid of emotion. Emotion
is the most dominant force in the market; when we understand
it, it can be a source of profit. (After we spend a few
days learning to read a ticker, you will recognize that
the ticker (Time and Sales) is pure emotion)."
We'd spend the first four days looking at tickers. The
students ask, "When are we going to look at charts?"
"Not before Thursday."
We'd spend those four days looking at tickers of the
Wholesale Environment and the Retail Environment (a Market-Maker
ticker showing the movements of the Market-Maker's bid
and ask prices; and the Trade Ticker), and of course, a
Level 2 screen.
In the trading manual that I wrote, and each student
received, there is the paragraph, "You will want to
focus on the rhythm or momentum of trades as they print.
Typically, the tempo will accelerate as a stock begins
to test a major technical level or even number ("The
Fig [short for figure]) and will often signal a move."
I'd explain that some days were Mozart, and some were
Mahler; some were Bach, some were Beethoven - and that
it was imperative to know the difference before entering
a trade.
A student would raise their hand, "When we gonna
learn charts?" They'd wave some chart book they'd read, "You
know, I know about charts..."
I'd put on my serious face, ""Every thing that
was, is in the charts. That's the problem, a chart is history...it's
past...gone...it's everything that was. Now a Level 2 screen,
that's the present. It's real. Like the Zen Masters will
tell you: 'Always be in the moment'. That's the key. Learning
to read a Level 2 screen is what keeps you in the moment."
Tuesday nights, Management would tell me about the complaints, "They
wanna hear about Charts...I know...Thursday..."
I'd tell the class on Thursday morning, "It is highly
recommended that you observe an issue at least 15 minutes
before opening a position. Sometimes an issue will appear
inviting. The chart looks like profit waiting to happen.
Observing the behavior of the stock in the Level 2 Screen,
and judging its behavior on the tickers can prevent a loss
before it occurs."
They'd be eager to get into 'Real-Time' Charts. I'd tell
them, "Trade the truth...React to reality. The ticker
does not lie. It always speaks the truth. Only fools with
egos attempt to predict the hard right hand edge of a chart."
One day out on the trading floor, on the last day of
class, one of the traders asked me, "If you owned
Sun Microsystems (SUNW) right now, what would you do?" I
put it up on the white-board screen on the wall of the
trading floor.
"I'd watch the tickers..."
And that's what I did. It'd been on a hell of a run.
And I'm watching the tickers. And watching...and watching...and
watching...and watching...and watching...and watching...and
watching...and watching...and watching...and I took out
my dry-marker...and watching...and watching...and took
the cap off...and watching...and watching...pound a mouse
button and pulled up the chart...and watching...and watching...and
walk up to the board and make a mark on the board and yelled, "Sell!
I'd be a seller right now!"
The traders and students roared with laughter...it went
up a teeny more...and the bottom dropped. That was it's
all-time high. Did I know it? Yup. How? The ticker told
me so. Not the chart (which was upward moving), but the
heartbeat of the stock - the ticker. And it told me a full
90-seconds before the top...it told me when I pulled the
top off my dry-marker. I was just waiting for the market
to figure out what happened.
The flow changed.
Throughout the first few days of class, I'd take notes
on the stocks that folks wanted to talk about all the time,
the ones they were 'in love with'. Chart day...I'd start, "Today,
we're going to learn about charting," eyes would tear up
with anticipation. Then I'd march them out en mass to the
far end of the trading floor. Traders would smile; they'd
seen it before. Then I'd run all the way across the trading
floor and put up a stock on the far wall of the training
room (which had a window for a wall) and they'd look wayyyyy
across the floor at a chart.
"What do you think of this one?"
"Looks like a ski slope."
"Looks like a homesick rock at 10,000 feet."
"Earthward bound."
"Well, this is XYZ which you happen to be in love with."
"Oh!"
I'd spend the morning running back and forth, showing
them long-term charts....
I'd show long-term chart after long-term chart and they'd
kinda get the idea, of course there was the inevitable, "Yeah,
but..."
You see - they were sold on the idea that the real-time
chart allowed them some close up look, and they'd zoom
in to get a 5-minute chart and imagine history. They'd
make up a direction based on what they wanted to see, and
not the reality of what was really occurring within that
particular issue, sector, or market.
"Most folks scrutinize charts too closely. There
are so many books written on charting, and too many traders
have read too many of them. They get into paralysis by
analysis. If you really want to read a chart, print it
out, tape it up to a wall, and stand on the other side
of the room. Then ask yourself one question. What's the
current trend? Never trade against the current trend."
What's this got to do with Tarot?
Everything/Nothing
So you get to a blank spot. That card...what is it? What
does it mean?
As long as you search for a meaning - it'll escape you.
And most likely what you come up with - is wrong.
Think of the card not as a Tarot card, but as a scoop
of Baba Ganoush from Giza. That's it!
"What's this scoop of Baba Ganoush from Giza doing
in my reading?"
Get some distance. Move away from your spread. Move away
from your cards. Stand up. Walk away. Move 6-10 feet or
more away and turn around.
Don't look at the card.
Look at the colors.
Don't look at the card, don't look at the suits....
Look at the flow...is there movement? (Yes this works with TdM quite well...does
too...)
Look at this like visual poetry....
Look at this like modern art....
Does it flow?
That's your meaning, that's your answer.
Is he facing the wrong way? Does it all flow like a stream
and hit this guy who seems to be blocking the whole thing?
That's your meaning.
Does the spread seem to flow backwards, off to the left
and you come to this 'stuck' card and the flow seems to
now go off to the right? That's your meaning.
The closer you get to the spread, the card, the details,
("if we use a magnifying glass, we see that Enzio
put in a little brush stoke over here on the left side
of the nose of the...wha...?")
Give yourself some room. Move back. Stand on a chair
if you have to, in order to get some distance.
Do the colors flow through your blank spot?
Getting distance changes our focus.
(Author's Opinion to follow)
We get so hung up on card meanings, and this book and
that book and meanings of the each singular card, we often
lose sight of the whole...we want to know what this card
means - and fail to hear what it is trying to tell us.
Creating physical distance changes our focus.
"Yeah but...I've got a sitter here"
Yup, and you two are hunched over a table...so get up...walk
around! Clear your mind! Then look back at the table...what
does it say? How does it flow? Baba Ganoush from Giza has
no meaning...but it either helps or hinders flow...listen...
Those of us who understood charts and tickers, were out
of the market before 1999. We were laughed at - but the
tickers told us what the charts couldn't.
The hardest material in the world is not a diamond -
it's the right hand edge of a chart. I've watched it make
grown men cry as their hearts were cut out.
Likewise, I like my cards to get turned over one at a
time...each one becomes like a chart - the cold hard right
hand edge...and there's a flow between the sitter and myself,
and the cards, and the spread, and there is no one single
important thing - not the card, not the spread, not me...it's
the flow of the whole....
Some days, reading is like Mozart, and some are like
Mahler; some are like Bach, some are Beethoven - and that
it is imperative (for the sitter) for me to feel the difference.
It's like music....
Quote:
Disclaimer: Contents of this post are 100% organic, without
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Nothing stated constitutes a solicitation to buy or sell
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Past performance is not indicative of future performance
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Everything expressed is the sole opinion of the poster
and does not constitute a mandate or a recommendation of
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Thank you to Dan Pelletier for permission to use this
contribution that first appeared on Aeclectic's
Tarot Forum.
[first appeared as an opening post in a thread by the
same name on Aeclectic's
Tarot Forum]
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